EU Forced Labor Regulations Tackle a Widespread Problem

The complexity of the global supply chain provides effective cover for the human rights abuses and forced labor lurking within. In many factories around the world, workers are subject to brutal working conditions, often for little pay, to produce components and goods for the global market.

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 27.6 million people - men, women, and children - are in forced labor around the world. Forced labor in the private economy accounts for 63% of all cases and generates an estimated US $63.9 billion in profit annually.

There are three international instruments for preventing forced labor: the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (C029), the Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (P029), and the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1967 (C105). Of 183 countries, only 60 have ratified all three.

To address this, the European Union (EU) has created legislation such as the Forced Labour Regulation (FLR) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). The FLR and CSDDD complement one another in their approach, with the CSDDD providing the due diligence component.

“The FLR does not create new due diligence obligations for companies,” said Hélène de Rengervé, a senior advocate for corporate accountability at Human Rights Watch in Brussels. While the FLR refers to the CSDDD and to voluntary standards like the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) and the Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the methods for due diligence are not described in the FLR itself.

“FLR also only looks at products and not services,” said de Rengervé. “So its scope is quite narrow.”

FLR Implementation Starts December 2027

The FLR was passed in November 2024 and implementation will start on December 14, 2027. It prohibits the introduction into the EU market of any product made with forced labor at any point in the supply chain. Based on the ILO's definition in the Forced Labour Convention, 1930, it identifies forced labor as “all work or service which is extracted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered [themselves] voluntarily.”

The FLR has extensive procedures for investigation and enforcement, depending on where the forced labor has taken place. The European Commission (EC) will lead investigations of suspected forced labor outside the EU, while member states will lead investigations that take place within their own borders. Enforcement authorities will use a risk-based approach when considering the scale and severity of the forced labor situation, the quantity of products involved, and what proportion of the product is the result of forced labor practices.

If the investigation determines that forced labor has contributed to the manufacturing of a product, that product will be prohibited from being made available on the EU market, and the product must be disposed of through recycling, destruction, or being rendered inoperable.

The Long Journey to FLR

In 2019, civil society organizations (CSOs) began advocating with the EC for mandatory Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence (mHREDD) requirements. More than 200 CSOs signed a joint letter to EU Commissioner Didier Reynders, who announced in spring 2020 that the EC would propose what would eventually become the CSDDD. In February 2021, Green MEP Anna Cavazzini published a report identifying options to establish an import ban on goods made with forced labor, followed by contributions from Anti-Slavery International, with which de Rengervé was working, who advocated for the creation of such a tool.

“We published several papers on our website and created a coalition of CSOs to push for this at the EU level,” said de Rengervé. “Eventually, this work contributed to the creation of the FLR.”

While the EC initially wanted the CSDDD to include requirements on forced labor, the CSOs argued for a separate instrument, to which EU President Ursula von der Leyen committed in September 2022.

“Now we have a mixed approach that bans goods made from forced labor outside the EU and prevents the sale on the EU market of goods made with forced labor inside the EU,” said de Rengervé. “We have three years to get everything ready at the EC and EU member states level, as both will be in charge of investigation and enforcement. There will also be a coordination body created at the EU level, as well as guidance to be published on investigations and how to remediate cases of forced labor. Preparation for that is happening now, but it's slow going.”

FLR Is a Milestone, but Work Remains

According to de Rengervé, while the FLR represents significant progress, there is still work to be done to protect the rights of workers in the global supply chain.

“One key gap in the FLR comes from the legal model on which it was built, which is market surveillance using a product safety perspective,” said de Rengervé. This model normally looks at technical elements that have to be verified by customs authorities, she said. Market surveillance laws are generally linked to the product's physical characteristics, such as resistance to shock and authorized materials.

As noted by de Rengervé, forced labor is not identifiable in the product's physical structure itself: it is identifiable only by investigating workers' labor conditions in the supply chain. Therefore, customs authorities cannot determine if a product has been made with forced labor by checking it at the border. It requires a different investigation process.

This product-focused approach creates a gap in which FLR does not address the workers themselves or the conditions in which they work.

“As a result,” said de Rengervé, “it does not formally include any consultation with the workers or any remediation of their situation. The only thing it requires, once the company has been sanctioned, is that if they want to sell the sanctioned product inside the EU again, they must demonstrate that they no longer have forced labor in their supply chain.”

According to de Rengervé, this creates a challenge for the efficiency of the law, especially as forced labor conditions can reappear very easily.

“If there is no one to monitor and check what is happening six months later,” she said, “we have no guarantee that whatever progress has been made has not been undone again.”

The complexity of the global supply chain could also make investigations and enforcement challenging.

When forced labor happens inside the EU, it will be easier to investigate it as investigators will have direct access on site, she said. However, outside the EU, forced labor can happen in any tier. The investigators might not have access to those suppliers, so they will need to rely on the company's due diligence efforts or on external parties to supply that information, like local or international CSOs, trade unions, or workers. “This can complicate the process,” de Rengervé admitted.

Omnibus Looms Large

On February 25, 2025, the EC published its Omnibus proposal to simplify due diligence and sustainability regulations. It proposes significant changes to the CSDDD, including the requirement for due diligence to be done only on Tier 1 suppliers, the frequency of periodic assessments reduced from one year to five years, limits on the amount of information large companies can request from smaller suppliers, and the removal of EU-wide civil liability conditions. This step back from effective due diligence could allow forced labor to flourish.

“If the due diligence legislation doesn't require a proper risk-based approach and just requires a risk analysis of Tier 1, companies will have a hard time knowing what is happening in the lowest tiers of their supply chain, even though that's where forced labor happens most of the time,” said de Rengervé.

The Omnibus risks creating a gap in terms of identification, knowledge, and ability to intervene. For the purpose of the FLR, companies will have to do this risk analysis down to the lowest tiers, whether or not it is required by the CSDDD.

The severity of the revisions to the CSDDD are all the more surprising when one considers that they seem to be a reaction to requirements that were not actually part of the CSDDD in the first place.

“The risk-based approach in CSDDD has never included a requirement to investigate all entities in the supply chain,” said de Rengervé. “It's a prioritization process that requires companies to identify key risks and entities. Due diligence on every entity in the supply chain is overcompliance, and that's not a smart approach to CSDDD.”

While EU parties like the European People's Party (EPP) are calling for further simplification or even deregulation of other sustainability legislation such as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), the Battery Regulation, and potentially the FLR, it is worth noting that it was this same European Parliament that approved the FLR last November, and that in the original plenary vote, only 6 of 705 members opposed it. Parliamentarians are, therefore, generally opposed across party lines to forced labor.

According to de Rengervé, the power to eliminate forced labor in the supply chain rests with the companies themselves and their ability to advocate for proper due diligence.

“I would encourage companies to be smart, continue to do a risk-based due diligence, and continue to speak up in favor of it,” said de Rengervé. “They need to talk to MEPs and decision makers in their countries. It should be common sense to want sustainable companies that at the same time generate profits, protect workers, and bring benefits to the local community.”

Forced Labor and the Human Rights Economy

Reports on forced labor make for sober reading. The textile industry, in particular, with its requirements for large numbers of low-skilled workers, is fertile ground for poor working conditions and low pay. However, as a result of public scrutiny and extensive efforts by advocacy groups, the industry has made some progress by mapping its supply chains and addressing specific patterns of abuse. The mining and fossil fuel industries continue to have some of the worst records for human rights abuses against workers, local communities, and Indigenous peoples.

Such ongoing abuses might suggest a bleak future for human rights. However, mechanisms such as the FLR and CSDDD are about more than eliminating forced labor in the global supply chain; they are about supporting an economy in which human rights and the sustainability of the planet are at the center of economic decisions. A human rights economy would be an ecosystem that creates better balance between workers and businesses.

“A human rights economy engages broader policy questions related to issues such as tax, debt, trade, and a just ecological transition with a focus on the realization of all people's rights,” said de Rengervé. “It's built on coordination, consultation, and engagement to protect the rights of workers and local communities and to ensure profits go not only to shareholders and companies but also to workers, local and national governments, and the protection of the environment.”

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